This invention relates to a conveyor system for automatically weighing a series of successively supplied products which vary in weight and for displaying information corresponding to the weight of each product so that inspection personnel may take corrective action to bring each product to within a predetermined weight range. The system is ideally suited for handling food products such as successively supplied groups or batches of sliced bacon strips supplied by a conveyor from a slicing machine. Thus the system relates generally to the systems disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 3,954,166, U.S. Pat. No. 5,499,719 and U.S. Pat. No. 6,635,830, the disclosures of which are herein incorporated by reference.
As an example, pork bellies are sliced into individual portion slices which are arranged in overlapping or shingled batches or groups, and it is necessary for each group to have a total weight within a predetermined weight range. The pork bellies are inconsistent in size and density, and it is difficult to calculate the exact number of slices which will be required to make a consistent net weight package that is in compliance with government regulations in regard to weight. Thus an inspection station is used downstream from the slicing machine to determine if the weight of each group or package is in compliance.
Commonly, the groups of bacon slices are successively fed across a conveyor weighing scale, and the groups determined to be too heavy or too light are diverted from the mainstream conveyor to be manually corrected. When off-weight groups are received, it is not known to what degree they deviate from the desired net weight package, and it is necessary for the inspection personnel to weigh the package, calculate the deviation, and add or subtract additional slices. This is usually a bottleneck in the production line, and it is desirable to provide an inspection system which provides for efficiently correcting the weight of each group or package of off-weight product and for minimizing the number of inspection personnel on the production line.